Smart grid proponents have some explaining to do

We are doing a new broadband conference October 13, after an FTTH conference (September 2009) and a mobile broadband conference (June 2010). The program isn't finalised yet, but one of the thing to look forward to is smart grid and smart metering. Hopefully somebody will teach us the value of these things, because I haven't been convinced yet. In fact, I am inclined to be an opponent, as I will explain here. Since I am probably not alone erring, I hope an expert speaker will address these points:

1. Burning oil (or corn) has three issues:

a. CO2 is released, which probably causes the greenhouse effect and as a consequence forces rapid climate change upon us.

b. Oil is scarce. Burning it will only make matters worse, driving up prices and making us ever more dependent on undemocratic countries for our oil supply. Burning corn or the like is just a stupid idea, not worth elaborating on.

c. Oil is scarce, even at times (such as in the middle of the night) when there is a temporary oversupply.

2. It is in our nature to try and drive up the efficiency of oil burning and usage. People are inventing smart grids, hybrid cars and are teaching us to unplug unused battery chargers. In itself, there is nothing wrong with increasing efficiency, but at the same time, three new issues arise:

a. Focus remains on burning oil, instead of developing new and truly green sources.

b. The efficiency efforts themselves require a lot of energy and oil burning.

c. It is naive to think that enabling consumers to monitor their usage will make them more frugal or efficient. Human nature doesn't work that way.

When it comes to business decisions, it is wise to sweat your assets and squeeze every penny out of them (as in copper networks). Oil is another matter however and we need to switch over to new sources sooner rather than later. It looks like we need to stop thinking in terms of increasing efficiency. We should be more ambitious and develop new sources that provide us with an abundance of energy. Energy shouldn't be scarce any more than bandwidth.

I can't wait for the expert to address these issues.

Australian NBN trials apps for FTTH

The Australian NBN is trialing applications to run over the new network in NSW. Finally stuff other than Internet access requiring OA FTTH! Here's what they will ofer 40 trial homes in the Parkbruidge Estate. Teleworking seems to be missing; the services being trialed can definitely be expanded; but smart metering - who buys that?

• Smart metering (with Integral Energy). "Allow families and business to track their energy consumption in real time and adjust energy use accordingly". This is the one application that nobody has been able to convince me about (see next post).
• Touch screen communication (by Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre and Consult Point). Basically e-health/e-care. For elderly and young children.
• Virtual world learning environment (by Smart Services CRC and NSW Department of Education and Training): An e-learning app.
• HD Internet TV (by NICTA and Opticomm). Basically a hybrid STB. You can wonder why they do not partner with Google TV or another existing player in the connected TV/hybrid TV/OTT market.

Google TV: what will the UI look like?

Connected TV, OTT content, hybrid STBs: success is largely dependent on the UI. According to this article, the Xbox is going 'Minority Report'. And in this article, Yahoo! talks about the UI for Yahoo! TV.

In theory, it's a mixture of a lare range of building blocks:

• Remote control, keyboard, mouse
• (Multi-)touch screen
• Camera, gesture-based control
• Menus, search
• Recommendation engines, social media
• Personalisation
• Widgets, widget channels, app stores
• Accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS
• Voice control
• ??

Google TV is keeping all its options open, for the moment. Read more about is over here.

Kabel Noord: the case for open access

Cable company Kabel Noord is a darling among fiber aficionados because of its commitment to FTTH. It is therefore gratifying to see that their 2009 results seem to reflect both FTTH and open access - to a limited degree.

Kabel Noord is quite small, with just 29k homes passed in the north east of Frisia (including two islands). While the company is behind Ziggo and UPC in terms of margins, free cash flow generation, ARPU and the roll-out of telephony services, it has taken a lead on the broadband market in terms of penetration.

For a review and comparison with Ziggo and UPC, read this article (subscription required).

After 3-D comes 4K

If you think 3-D is the end of video developments, you should have been at last week's Mediapark Jaarcongres 2010 in Hilversum. 3-D, 4K and holography were hot topics.

First 3-D. Phil Lelyveld of the Consumer 3D Experience Lab in Los Angeles explained why headaches and nausea are issues for 3-D. The focus point is by definition on the screen, but looking at two different images at the same time makes our eyes converge at a different point, either in front of or behind the screen. This creates the 3-D experience, but for some it is hard for the head or the stomach. Hence, 3-D is to be applied in a moderate way and Phil recommends not too many images where the convergence point is way in front of the screen.

Then holography. There was some talk about Japan trying to organise the 2022 Soccer World Cup, in which case they would have holographic projections of each match in soccer stadiums around the country.

Finally 4K. If television develops from black & white to color to widescreen to HD to 3-D, then 4K could be the next step. Back in 2004, this article in the New York Times described MGM's efforts digitising analogue films in the 4K standard. The 4K standard is experimented on by CineGrid in the Netherlands, working with SURFnet and other partners. Fiber is explicitly mentioned as the medium of choice, because of the excessive data rate. Images are 4x sharper than in 3-D (i.e. a 4,096 x 2,160 resolution) and sound is recorded in 16 channels. According to this leaflet, 1.5 hours of video would require 750 DVDs or 3.5 TB of data. Each frame would be the equivalent of up to 50 MB, not mentioning what the 16 sound channels require. It was stated that a 4K stream would require a massive 8 Gb/s download speed for streaming (uncompressed), or close to 1 Gb/s (compressed). So that looks like a cinema experience, rather than a home cinema experience for now. Coincidentally, a few days ago a new 4K recording was made of Viktoria Mullova, playing JS Bach in the Holland Festival.

Nokia's first step

This pedal-powered charger from Nokia is nice, but they need to think on a much bigger scale.

First the Why, then the How and last the What

Chrome faster than what?!?

FTTH Netherlands 2010: report now available

The new FTTH Netherlands 2010 report can be ordered here. Hope to see you September 22 at our Broadband Netherlands 2010 conference.

FTTH Netherlands report: 2009-2014

Our new FTTH NL 2010 report is out! Buy one and get a free pass to our Broadband NL 2010 conference (September 22). Almost 50 pages - it's a bargain.

Some highlights:

• Reggefiber may have a majority market share, but there's lots of interesting stuff going on at a dozen newcomers and indie operators.
• Structural separation comes in any thinkable flavour (exception: no company rolls out the passive network and provides services, without also acting as an operator). The market is embracing all 6 other varieties without any external pressure.
• It doesn't take outrageously positive thinking to see penetration reach some pretty decent levels by 2014.